This Canadian province just forced a lot of couples to basically get married

In British Columbia, becoming a spouse no longer requires a wedding. As of Monday, couples who have lived together for a period of at least two years will have the same rights and responsibilities as couples that are married.

The new Family Relations Act deems the beginning of a spousal relationship as the first day a couple moves in together, and once that cohabitation sticks for two years, it's more or less the same as exchanging vows at the altar — at least in terms of legal rights and responsibilities. Couples that have been living together for two years will now have a "50/50 split of shared debts and assets, excluding pre-relationship property, inheritances, and gifts," CBC News reports.

The point of the measure is to curb a rise in common-law couples, which in British Columbia are outpacing traditional marriages by three-fold in growth. The problem is that such couples have fewer legal obligations to one another, leading to break-ups in which former partners have no legal claims on what had once been shared assets, such as homes or cars.

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